BJP wants President's rule in Tripura, CPI-M, Congress ridicule demand

Agartala, Nov 30 : The BJP on Thursday called for President's rule in Tripura, alleging "deterioration of law and order situations". The northeastern state's ruling CPI-M and Congress ridiculed the demand.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it would launch statewide agitations from Friday in support of their demand and would law siege to all the 76 police stations on December 5.

A BJP delegation led by party's tribal leader Jishnu Debbarma on Thursday met Governor Tathagata Roy and submitted a four-page memorandum.

"If the CPI-M-led Left Front remain in power, there would be more killings before the February (2018) assembly polls. Already the law and order situations have been deteriorated to a large extent," Debbarma, who accompanied by party's observer Sunil Deoghar, told the media.

"Besides political violence, there have been many suspicious deaths of general public including two journalists in the recent past. Even the role of the state police is not beyond doubt," said the BJP memorandum, a copy of which was distributed to the media.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state Secretary Bijan Dhar termed the BJP's demand "nasty, undemocratic and unfounded".

"Such demand shows BJP's frustration and they get a sense that they would suffer a great jolt in the next assembly elections in the state," said Dhar, a CPI-M central committee member.

Another CPI-M central committee member Gautam Das said that BJP lost the elections even before the polls and that is why they are raising such demand.

The Congress also rejected BJP's demand, terming it an "evil design" and illogical.

"To come to power through undemocratic means, the BJP earlier demanded central intervention and now demanding for President's rule in Tripura only to defer the assembly elections," state Congress Vice President Tapas Dey told media.